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Post by Stage on Aug 3, 2018 5:29:54 GMT
There was no response at first. The village was as quiet as it was still.
Vigr staggered to his feet. The head of the varul lifted as his jaws fell open.
"<ANSWER HER!>" he roared, though he knew they could not understand him.
Finally, a woman, tall and gaunt, stepped out of a shanty. Her orange eyes were sunken into her broad skull, but they glowed strongly, like licks of fire in her sockets.
"<No one here,>" she told Circe. "<The killer you seek is called Mussurana. She said the creature was a demon. Because it was trying to take our people, we believed her. I am sorry for your friend's loss, but tell him that trying to seek vengeance is foolishness. She is our greatest warrior. Nothing can stop her. Tell him to take the body and go. We are poor. We having nothing else to offer him.>"
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 3, 2018 6:03:22 GMT
If the answer she had gotten raised a reaction from her, Circe made no indication of it. "Mussurana is the murderer, who protected you in self defense." She repeated, so Vigr could hear what they had to say. "Very well then. But, one last question... Describe this Mussurana and where she may be so, we can best avoid her."
It was clear from her tone, however, that those words were a lie. She was interested, VERY interested at that. Her ravens cawed, their eyes searching around the village itself. "Once you answer, we will take the remains and leave."
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Post by Stage on Aug 3, 2018 6:16:14 GMT
The huge paws of the varul clutched, claws lacing into his own flesh, sending trickles of blood down his thumbs. He etched the name into his soul.
Mussurana.
"<You would know her,>" the woman answered. "<She is tallest among us. A head above you. Her eyes and hair as the deepest black. And...>"
Here, the woman hesitated, the fire in her eyes fading.
"<She did what you see with no flames. She is touched by our goddess. Whatever you plan, please, do not. It will not work.>"
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 3, 2018 6:21:34 GMT
"The tallest among you... with black hair and eyes, and favored by the gods." Circe began to chuckle. The right side of her face twitched, and she turned back to Vigr. "Gather your brother's remains, and head back through the rift. I'll meet you on the other side. If I went before you, the rift would close, and you'd be stuck here until I opened another one."
Her hidden face, however, veiled a rapidly growing smile. She had... a little something she wanted to do before she herself left...
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Post by Stage on Aug 3, 2018 6:39:40 GMT
"<Anything you want,>" Vigr said suddenly. He turned to Circe, his golden eyes burning and his still quite voice dripping venom. "<I will do it. Help me find and kill this Mussurana... and I will do anything you want.>"
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 3, 2018 7:00:16 GMT
Circe nodded. "Perfect. I promise, I will devote all available resources to help avenge the death of your brother. Anyone who stands in our way, or allies with her will also pay the price."
She watched as Vigr removed the skull and ashes of his slain kin, and walked through the rift. Once he was gone, her attention turned back to the woman in the shanty. From beneath the hood, dark purple lines could be seen glowing across the hidden face of the sorceress. "Woman, I thank you for your cooperation... but I am afraid I must go back on my earlier words of leaving in peace."
Her tome flipped open, and dark green mist began to billow out from between the opened pages. The mist surged upward toward the hovering ravens, who were engulfed by the evil mist. "You see, you claimed your champion was touched by your goddess. In that moment, I received a vision from my god, a decree that what you spoke is blasphemy against him. You and your village, your civilization, are an affront to the desires of my god, so, you must perish for his will, and join in the carnival of carnage!"
She shouted up into the sky, "NOQCAQ QIBJ!" At once, the three hell ravens let the mist envelop them, and folded their wings in. They began to plummet down toward the shanties below, their falling frames growing larger and larger, and falling faster and faster, until each of them had become a giant burning rock of molten material thirty feet in diameter and width...
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Post by Stage on Aug 3, 2018 8:23:20 GMT
The only thing that could be heard before the first impact was a cry of, "Pritaga u lis nenis!" from the orange-eye woman.
Then Hell spilled across the shanty town.
The ragged shacks were flattened by the tremendous crash, many glued to the ground as the molten rock splashed over them and then cooled, encasing the dead within them for all time. The second object landed on the edge of the town, splashing its liquid metal content onto the jungle and setting it ablaze. The third meteor slingshotted into the base of the bird-headed statue.
With a dying groan, the monument to the goddess of the inhabitants of the town collapsed, its multi-ton weight crushing several shanties and assumably the people within them.
It seemed Falajax was no longer here.
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 3, 2018 8:47:15 GMT
It was the most beautiful sight Circe had seen in this new and strange land. The flickering fire that danced and whirled around her, the rising scent of smoke and death, the burning forest and the cries and wails of the dying and the damned...
It was all so beautiful!
As the fires swept through the remains of the town and the surrounding forest, Circe roared with a haughty, echoing laughter. For but a moment, the glow of the fire illuminated the face of the sorceress, and all the dead could see was a crazed, manic face, the face of a monster lording over the death of the poor.
"Your goddess is nothing before the Master of Miracles!" Circe taunted. "And neither will your champion be against us! This is but a prelude, a reminder to all civilization, to all who turned their back on the Master of Miracle and chased after false gods: There is no survival, no safety, no hope. Fate has decreed as such, and this world... this world shall be a feast for the Master of Miracles!"
She would have watched the village burn to smoldering ash all day if she could.... but that wasn't an option. It pained her, to have to leave such beautiful art, but she had obligations to perform, and a few... loose ends to wrap up as well. A shame, leaving only the wind to tell of this carnage.
This.. banquet to the darkness.
She turned, and walked through the rift at long last, and the rift closed behind her...
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Post by Stage on Aug 3, 2018 9:17:24 GMT
Not long after the madwoman left, a figure stumbled from the smoke and flames: the orange-eyed woman.
Ironically, stepping out of her shelter had been what saved her. She had not been trapped like the others, free to leap about and save herself from the fire and debris. She had not escaped unscathed though. Not at all. One her arms danged uselessly, burned black from the shoulder down and caked in a mixture of metal and stone. Similar burns, albeit smaller and less severe, dotted her body, leaving her already patchy, soiled dress clinging onto her by only a few strands, showing her gaunt, bony body beneath it. Either the people of this village had not lived much better than they had died, starved for food, or she was in particularly poor health.
She seemed to hardly notice though. Instead, she staggered with intense purpose through the ruins, trying to find landmarks despite the destroyed landscape. Eventually, she stopped, dropping to her knees in front of a particular shack, smashed flat like all the rest. Her working arm clawed desperately at the partially melted shanty, trying to find a grip to raise it, to pry it off the ground.
There were none.
"Vid," she sobbed. "Vid, pir fuvir raspindama. Pir fuvir segoa astundi vevi."
Part of her knew that she would not receive an answer.
That she would never receive an answer.
Because the dead did not speak.
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